A Very Good Stupid Idea
by Vchanny
Summary: Some of the best laid plans, fall apart. My entry for the Senshi x Shitennou Holiday 2020 Gift Exchange, put on by the lovely Adrianna Sharp!


Kudret, formerly Kunzite of the Dark Kingdom, and before that, Knight of Elysian, always had a knack for knowing when things were not going well. Whether it be a business meeting going south, a merger about to fall apart, or a project about to fail due to incompatible teams. He just knew.

The lack of notifications and texts coming from his phone that morning had his spider senses tingling.

It was not like his girlfriend, one Aino Minako, to not blow up his phone before lunch. In fact, those same texts were coming in consistently at 5 am or earlier near the beginning of her trip, before he reminded her of the time difference. She had sheepishly replied that she'd forgotten, she had just missed him so much, and she'd try to text at better times. He ended up just muting his phone from midnight until his alarm went off to save her from feeling bad.

Her flight had landed the morning prior, ending her three week business trip, and it was his way to not pester her so soon after arriving, and give her time to fight the jet lag. But, the phone silence was bothering him.

Beyond a "Landed! Can't wait to sleep for three days" followed by some sleeping emojis, he hadn't heard from his blonde companion.

Something was not right, which is what brought him outside the door of her modest apartment building. He had skipped the flowers, instead bringing dinner from one of her favorite local eateries. He had her spare key, but decided to knock, thinking the surprise of it would be more romantic. Kudret was not known for his romantic prowess, so when he felt like he could be, he tried his hardest.

A few moments later, he heard the lock unbolt and the door cracked open. When her blue eyes met his, she huffed, and stubbornly opened the door enough for him to enter.

Kudret quirked a brow, not sure what was going on, but graciously entered, placing a chaste kiss on top of her head, before making his way over to her eat-in kitchen. After being apart this long, they were usually hands all over each other making their way to the other room by now.

She followed him and greedily began looking through the take-out bags, with nothing more than a faint greeting passing her lips.

Maybe she was just hungry, he thought to himself, trying to push those more amorous memories to the back of his mind. "I figured you hadn't eaten."

What had appeared to be a bit of a grin on her face, immediately turned to a scowl. "Oh, is that SO?"

Kudret sat back in his seat, unsure of what was going on. By the look on her face, he knew that, at this point, nothing he said would land well in her ears. He needed to wait and see what this was about.

"Care to elaborate? Why wouldn't I have eaten, Kudret? It's after seven at night! Surely, I am an adult capable of taking care of myself?"

Her hands had gone from balled fists to being firmly planted on her hips, and Kudret knew this had gone past the point of no return. She'd reveal why she was upset soon enough. "Minako, I'm not sure-"

"OR did you expect a home cooked meal from me?!"

Ah. Kudret knew what this was about now. He braced himself for the tirade about to hit him, because apparently, his idea had been very stupid.

"Mako-chan seems to think that I SHOULD LEARN TO COOK FOR YOU." She was leaning on the table, now, one hand holding her up and another pointing angrily in his face. "Which I thought at first, must have been some crossed signals she thought she picked up from me. But NO. She said YOU suggested it. You. And what the fuck happened to my apartment?"

"Your apartment?" her abrupt change in topic caught him off guard, he was still trying to figure out the best way to smooth over the cooking thing, which, for the record, he still thought was a good idea.

"YES." She was moving around now, pointing at things. "Where is my stuff?"

He was sure he was about to regret this. "You mean the piles of old fashion magazines? And the mounds of clothes? The dead plants I catch Artimas chewing on when he thinks no one is looking?"

She looked like a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse, eyes narrow, body still.

Kudret stood and approached her calmly, palms out in the most non-threatening manner he could think of. "Nothing is gone. Well… the plants. But I just organized things a little. I swear."

She tilted her head slightly to the side, challenging him to continue. "Are you implying I'm a slob?"

"No, no, no! I was here watering your plant for you, and I remembered you complai-mentioning, that you were having a hard time finding something when you were packing." He placed his hands on her shoulders, attempting to soothe her by gently rubbing them up and down her arms. "I was just trying to do something nice."

She huffed, and whisked past him back to the table. Setting containers of food out with a bit more force than necessary. "Alright, Marie KONDO, why don't YOU learn to cook? Because I," she sat down, with a smile he knew was forced and not genuine, "Will never be the domesticated girlfriend you're looking for. It does not bring joy. Period."

Kudret nodded, a bit defeated, and joined her at the table to eat, letting those earlier thoughts of happier reunions keep him company.

He had never set out to upset his girlfriend. Kudret was an observant man. He had, on more than a dozen occasions, overheard Minako express to her friend, Makoto, that she wished she could make food as delicious as hers. And he couldn't count the times they'd been late because she couldn't find something. She had been gone three weeks, and maybe he had just gotten restless in missing her, but he genuinely thought the deep clean of her apartment, and the suggestion to Mako-chan would be well received.

So, the following Tuesday, Kudret found himself at Mako's cafe.

"Hey, Beefcake! Where's your blonde appendage?" a friendly voice greeted him as he approached the counter.

Kudret couldn't remember when Minako's tall friend started to use that nickname, but he learned quickly that trying to get her to stop only made things worse, and unlike Jun, he couldn't threaten her with bodily harm. "About that," he started as he placed his sunglasses in his jacket pocket.

The girl chuckled purposely. "She turned the tables on you, huh?"

"Seems so."

"Oh well," she handed him an apron and motioned for him to follow her, "Come in the back, and we'll get started. I'm going to teach one of you to cook today."

Kudret sighed, and followed her through the classic swinging door that led to the kitchen. They made their way to a prep station she'd cleared off that morning, away from her staff and very much out of the way.

"So, Beefcake, what am I working with here?"

He stared back at her blankly, as he tied the apron around his waist.

"Oh." A small sigh escaped her lips, followed by a knowing smile. "That's okay. I've worked with much worse. I tried to teach Usagi-chan to make cookies at my apartment a while back, and she caught my oven on fire." She paused, tilting her head slightly, lost in thought. "Still not sure how that happened. Oh well! Got a new appliance out of that one. Try not to start any fires, eh?"

Kudret spent the next four weeks taking lunch every Tuesday and Thursday at Mako's cafe, learning the basics of cooking.

They started with a simple soba noodle dish to get used to the kitchen. It wasn't quite the grand gesture he wanted to present to his girlfriend as a surprise, but it was a start. He quickly mastered dumplings, surprising even himself with the nimbleness of his own fingers.

Soon, Makoto started to challenge him with slightly more complicated dishes. The Takoyaki octopus balls seemed like a good test of skill, but Kudret was not good at flipping them, and quickly grew frustrated with the task. It was when she tried to teach him to make Tofu katsu curry, Mako realized he wasn't good at watching more than one pan at a time. After that, Makoto decided on a simpler dish to focus on, that she knew Minako loved and seemed to fit his skill set better.

Once Mako cleared him of not being a hazard in the kitchen, he graduated from her impromptu cooking school, and decided he was ready to tackle the sesame chicken recipe she had taught him. It was the one thing he managed to cook to Makoto's standards. They were both confident it would impress the shit out of Minako.

Minako would be home later than usual the night he decided to dazzle her with his newly acquired skills, and hopefully end the tension he had created. He carefully shopped for the ingredients on his list, and arrived at her apartment ready to work. Once he entered the kitchen, he was immediately aware of how fucked he was, and began berating himself for not checking to see if his girlfriend had the bare necessities of a kitchen available.

Rummaging through her cabinets, he managed to find a never used rice cooker, a pot, which was too small, and a pan which had more than its fair share of scorch marks.

Her assortment of cooking utensils did not fare much better in his favor.

This would not get him down. It may not have been the gourmet kitchen he learned in, but he was the leader of the Shittenou, damnit, and he would figure this out. He oiled the pan and set it down on the stove, ready to get started.

Her front burner wasn't working. Great.

He trudged forward with this skeleton setup, determined to deliver this surprise dinner. The rice in the rice cooker, he turned his attention to cutting the vegetables on the too small cutting board, with the dull, too small knife.

There was no lid to the pot-he made due with a plate. Thank God she had real plates, at least. He set the table with the mismatched tableware, while a sauce simmered on the stove.

When he went to sear the chicken, things got worse. He did it exactly as he had before, but smoke was looming from the stovetop. As he tried to figure out what to do, his phone began ringing from the counter behind him. It was Makoto. He slid the green icon to answer the video call.

"How's it going?" she asked cheerfully.

"There is smoke EVERY WHERE!"

The face on the screen looked gravely concerned, not that Kudret saw it, because he was too busy trying to fix things. "What'd you do?!"

"Nothing!" came his frantic response, as he tried to find a place to put the now removed pan down.

"Was the pan too hot? Did you use the wrong oil?"

"What?" Kudret wiped his hands on a towel and grabbed the phone, finally greeting his caller.

"Different oils have different smoking points. You should have been using vegetable or olive oil or something similar."

Kudret rifled through the strewn ingredients on the counter, grabbing the oil container so he could tell her what it was. "Flaxseed oil?" It was expired, he noted.

"Oh dear."

Kudret let off a long line of expletives in his head while beginning to air out the apartment, and Makoto began going over what they could do to fix things.

"Don't worry about it. It's pointless. The chicken breasts are burned. There is no fixing this. This was a poorly planned effort."

Makoto chided him. "Calm down. You still have the rice. Clean the rest of that up. I'll be there as soon as I can. Your dinner will go on!"

Kudret raised a brow at her, as she quickly waved at the camera and ended the call. He sighed, taking in the carnage around him, and began cleaning up.

Not long after, there was a knock at the door to Minako's apartment. Makoto arrived with bags of prepared food ready to save the day.

"Where'd you get all this so quickly?" he asked suspiciously as he followed her in.

Makoto waved him off, making quick work of setting dishes on the table.

"You expected me to fail," he accused.

She turned to him sheepishly. "Maybe a little?"

Mako quickly helped him reset, and even took the trash with the evidence on her way out. Minako arrived not too long after, surprised and seemingly impressed that he followed through.

"This is all so amazing," she complimented after they'd both finished their meal.

"And, it's not over yet."

"Oh?" she suggestively wagged her eyebrows.

"One second." He left the table and returned moments later with an enticing chocolate frosted cake.

She let out a dramatic gasp. "A man after my heart!"

He smiled softly, and cut a piece off for both of them, happy that things seemed to be going well after that piss poor start. Mako even overcooked the food a little to make it more realistic that he'd tackled the task, and allowed him to ice the cake.

She was licking the last bit of chocolate off her fork when she turned to him with a sly look on her face. "You didn't make this."

He feigned insult. "What are you accusing me of?"

She was grinning ear to ear now. "I know you didn't bake this cake. And there was a slight hint of smoke when I got home, so I don't think you cooked our dinner, either."

She was far too observant for her own good, but he decided to play along. "Is that so?"

"It is." She leaned over, gently grabbing him by his collar, and pulled him into a kiss. "And while I don't appreciate being lied to, I do appreciate the gesture."

"Mhm." He stole a quick kiss before they parted. "I really did try."

"I know," she stole a bite of his cake. "I'm sorry I exploded. How about we call a truce? I couldn't possibly continue fighting with this decadent chocolate offering in front of me. Was there any frosting left, because I totally have a fun use for it-"

"Minako, please," he chided.

She giggled, and took his hand under the table.

He gently squeezed her offered hand and kissed her temple. "I promise not to overstep, again. I'd never ask you to change. I love you just the way you are."

She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. "Apology accepted."

"Though, so you know, you are getting a pots and pans set for Christmas this year."

"HEY!"

"AND a proper set of knives."

She smirked and then swiftly grabbed a handful of chocolate cake and smashed it into his face, leaving him flabbergasted for a moment.

"Oh, it's on!" he exclaimed as he pulled her into his lap and began relentlessly tickling her.

Things were finally going well, again.

End.


End file.
